Technical Field
The present disclosure is directed generally to package delivery tracking and theft prevention, and more specifically to a package delivery notification and protection system and method of providing delivery information and reducing theft of delivered packages.
Description of the Related Art
Purchasing items online and having packages containing such items delivered to your doorstep is in this day and age nearly effortless. Thanks to companies like Amazon and Alibaba making such online purchases easy and inexpensive, the number of things that can be purchased online and delivered to homes and businesses is at an all-time high. Whether the purchased item is a $20 t-shirt, a $600 smart phone, groceries, or a bouquet of flowers, a person does not want the item to be stolen after the package has been delivered, which typically means the package has been left on the doorstep of the home of the purchaser. In this situation, the delivered package containing the item is vulnerable to theft until the package is retrieved from the doorstop. Thieves, particularly during the holiday season, may follow delivery trucks and watch the drivers of such delivery trucks deliver packages to the doorsteps of purchasers. The thieves may simply wait for a delivery driver to deposit a package on the doorstep of a purchaser and thereafter go and steal the package off the doorstep before the purchaser has a chance to retrieve the package.
In addition to concerns over theft of delivered packages, situations also commonly arise where a package is delivered and the recipient of the package is not even aware of this delivery. Various existing approaches to notifying a recipient of delivery are utilized by online companies such as Amazon, but the notifications provided by these approaches regarding delivery of the package to the destination address is limited and not always reliable.
There is a need for protecting from theft packages delivered to the doorsteps of online purchasers as well as for providing more reliable information relating to such deliveries.